Idowu Akinlotan
FOR the second time in one week, the leading opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has insisted it is not considering a change of name going forward to the 2023 elections. In July 2018, it was widely rumoured that the party would need to re-enact the All Progressives Congress (APC) tactics of identity moulting in order to stand any chance of winning the 2019 polls. That effort was abandoned as a needlessly infantile trick or even a bit of skulduggery. But a few weeks ago, in a Facebook post, former presidential spokesman, Doyin Okupe, again suggested that the opposition party would be constrained by its name should it attempt to go into the next polls with its present identity. However, reacting to Dr Okupe’s post and responding to reporters’ questions on the same subject, party chairman, Uche Secondus, insisted the chances of undergoing a name change were next to nothing.
In a January Facebook post, Dr Okupe had argued that public perception of PDP was appalling and “if this perception continues till the election in 2023, we can easily be muscled out of victory by the power of incumbency and Nigerians will not care a hoot.” According to him, “It will be a case of dog-eat-dog. Secondly, and as a consequence of the above, the PDP has a heavy credibility burden, which will weigh it down during the campaigns. A brand new party with new orientation and ideology cannot have a past that anyone can use against it effectively.”
He suggested that quite a number of leading but disaffected APC members were ready to jump their turbulent ship and berth with the PDP. The only thing standing in the way of desertion, Dr Okupe argued, was the bad brand name of the PDP. Said he: “Most of them (APC members) because of self-pride and personal credibility will not like to come under the so-called ‘soiled’ umbrella of the PDP. However a brand new political formation different in substance and essence from PDP will be a political refuge for them and even others presently undecided to vigorously pursue their agenda and exploits under the new formation”
Whether Mr Secondus likes it or not, the brand name of the PDP will continue to be an issue in the months and years ahead. The wisdom or otherwise of changing the party’s name will continue to weigh on the minds of party members. Should they bite the bullet, they will discover how onerous and frightening it is to take a leap in the dark. But after its 88th National Executive (NEC) meeting last week, the party once again told reporters that no name change prospect was in sight. They will stick to the known and be cautious about leaping into the unknown.
Dr Okupe did not of course set inordinate store by the prospective name change. He wants name change for the PDP, but he also asks for the party to rebrand beyond just changing its name. He wants substantial ethical and ideological rebranding in order to reposition the PDP for the 2023 elections. He is not opposed to merger, if that would do the trick. Mr Secondus himself, while debunking the name change rumour, suggested that the party was not averse to a merger given the current political situation and PDP’s standing in the country. Dr Okupe put it more engagingly: ”…You know that the APC controls 21 states while the PDP controls 15 out of the 36 states in the country. The PDP in its present state and form cannot win comfortably the presidential election in 2023. To defeat the APC in 2023, I want the PDP leaders to think of changing the name of the party. They must also make the party itself the arrowhead of a national movement to oust the present administration. We should not forget that this is exactly what the component factions of the APC did in 2014.”
The former presidential spokesman has flown a kite. It may be a small kite, but fluttering and flailing in the wind may have evoked enough attention to make the matter difficult to eradicate with one or two verbal or written strokes. The tantalising idea of changing their name will remain with them as long as possible. Mr Secondus cannot now be persuaded about the value of changing the party’s name, but he is sufficiently open — some say even vacuous — to keep the prospect in view. If on a hypothetical tomorrow the party gravitates in the direction of name change, it is hard to see the amiable chairman putting up any strong defence. He is not opposed to running with the hare and hunting with the hound, and with the way he is beholden to one or two party financiers and strongmen, he will sooner be dictated to than stand up for anything strong and irreproachable.
Despite Dr Okupe’s carefree suggestion, and Mr Secondus’ paternalistic rebuff, there is nothing yet in the PDP to show just where they are heading. They may feel 2023 is still far away, but they must consider the accretive aggression with which the ruling APC has battled for votes and by-elections to have a sense of the urgency needed to face the next general election. They do not have all the time in the world, in case they do not know. But how long they can leave things hanging, how lackadaisically they can approach the APC’s ruthless killer instinct, is not clear. What is clear, however, is that of the three years the PDP think they still have, they really don’t have more than one and a half or two years. Whether they would be hung in 2023 or soar with wings of eagle will depend on the clarity of their choices and ideologies, the exemplariness of their administrative know-how, and the hunger to win.
While the PDP is embroiled in many stifling problems, and is thus not positioned to fight anybody, let alone win anything, Dr Okupe is wrong to think that the way out is to dispense with their name and engage in superficial and glitzy rebranding. The party’s problem is much deeper, and no one in the party has shown an intuitive grasp of it. For instance, responding to the judicial conundrum imposed on the party by the Supreme Court decision in the Imo governorship case and the dismissive way they felt the Abubakar Atiku presidential appeal had been disposed of, the party organised a weak-kneed and lily-livered street protest. It is of course possible that the judiciary had treated the two cases with levity, incompetence and mathematical irresponsibility, but responding with street protests, as innovative as they seem to be in these parts and in the Nigerian polity, are ineffectual and theatrical.
Mr Secondus is right to dismiss the possibility of renaming the PDP. And even though he leaves enough room for manoeuvrability when he talked of merger, he must seek wisdom to move the party forward and in the right direction. But whether Mr Secondus himself possesses the wisdom to conceive and apply the needed change is the great question the party must grapple with in the months ahead. Once they reach that fork in the road, and have the good fortune to take the right turn, they must then return to the fundamental issues that enervate and misdirect them. One of those issues is the wearisome fact that those who hold the party’s purse strings are themselves too incompetent and too devoid of sound ideas and ethics to remould and energise the ailing opposition party. The problem is not their name. With a new name, they will soon discover that they are still stuck with their old problems, shorn of name recognition, and led by new faces the electorate can’t connect with.
Years back, the party nearly cut the Gordian knot that strangulated it when it foisted a wealthy and stouthearted chairman to help them bell the cat, clear the barn, and rout the enemy. Instead, it turned out that the foisted chairman, Ali Modu Sheriff, was nothing but a bold but divisive and alienating character. Had he possessed the right ideas and vision, not to say the necessary altruism the party desperately needed to project values and persons that would resonate with the electorate, the PDP would have stood a fighting chance. But having ousted the obtruding Mr Sheriff, and thus dispensed with his money, PDP leaders were left forlorn, and craving for a new husband. Months later, they found themselves in bed with different but equally rapacious patrons, this time more demanding, more banal, more pervert, and even more imposing.
Hopefully, Mr Secondus and the party’s panjadrums will stick to their decision to keep the name of their party. They are right to worry about the future, especially in the face of a rampaging APC. But in facing up to that uncertain future they will need not only their old name, they will also need a few virtues of which they have so far been destitute. They will need foresight, courage, wisdom and flexibility in reforming their party, purging their senior and junior ranks, refining their conservative ideology, and building the necessary coalition to make themselves worthy of their enemies. They will be fighting an enemy that has become fleet-footed and a moving target. For the PDP which has shown little ability in recent years for marksmanship, the APC will be a relentless and irrepressible opponent. Such an opposition requires a party that is on top of its game, a position which the PDP has in recent years looked at wistfully.
In the past five years, the PDP has been consistently and steadily wrong-footed. If they are not careful, they could become accustomed to losing or always barking up the wrong tree. Worse, they could also become vulnerable to all manner of sure cures and dangerous panaceas, with some of their leaders, already feigning altruism, recommending either the wrong medicines or overdose. Dr Okupe is one of the very many such medicine men roaming the periphery of the party. If they are not suggesting name changes, they are recommending and embracing wealthy patrons. If care is not taken, instead of grappling with their real problems, the party could end up slam bang in the hands of a new set of charlatans. One more defeat like the one they suffered in 2019 could completely demoralise them, make them uncompetitive, or send them out of business altogether.
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